I’d Like to Think Someone is Listening

Why else tell what it’s like in my house full of machines? I like being alone but my brain cannot sit still. Its doomsday shorthand leaves me teary in a gym full of jump-roping children, red and pink paper chains draped between basketball hoops. I try taking pictures of my daughter but she moves too fast. Her red glass heart bounces on her chest. I am looking for the door that opens on the shipwreck overtaken by hundreds of cormorants, all evil in their black bony clamor and stink. On my own deserted island, the sun shines weakly. Are you here, too?

Kathleen McGookey’s prose poems and translations have appeared in many journals and anthologies including Boston Review, Crazyhorse, Field, Ploughshares, and Willow Springs. She is the author of Whatever Shines, October Again, and Mended, and the translator of We’ll See, a book of prose poems by contemporary French poet Georges Godeau. Her book Stay is forthcoming from Press 53 in fall 2015; her book At the Zoo is forthcoming from White Pine Press in spring 2017. In 2014, she received a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, which supports artists who are parents. Her favorite sweet is chocolate birthday cake. Her email address is kathleen.mcgookey@gmail.com.

 … return to Issue 7.3 Table of Contents.